Gossamer Dreams
by FlowerOwl
Summary: In a world he could not recognise, the fleeting memories of her were what gave him the courage to continue.


After waking up in a world he could not recognise without his memories, leaving him with no idea of who he was or what he could possibly do, Link found that others telling him where to go, whom to talk to, and what to find was the best he could hope for now. At least, that way, he would for a moment not have to face the truth of the situation he had found himself in ever since waking up, instead allowing him to pretend that this was fine, a minor issue that he would soon be able to overcome. As long as he followed the instructions the people around him gave, Link knew that it would all work out in the end.

It was that logic that sent him halfway across the country, crossing fields full of monster camps and ancient machines that sometimes followed him as he pushed the horses he found to the limit in his attempt to flee, or sometimes settled for merely shooting after him as sprinted towards the nearest rock, crouching down behind it while he hoped for the best.

But even as he sat there, the tip of his hair slightly singed where he had not quite been able to evade the blast in time, Link knew that he would not give up. He had nothing but the words of the old woman—Impa, his mind supplied him with—who had claimed that they had once known each other before she had sent him away again with the message that he should seek out the director of the Hateno Ancient Tech Lab.

Really, as he sat there, the doubts about what he was doing were almost overwhelming enough to make him give up. He knew no one. The only reason he knew his own name was because it had been the first thing the woman's voice had said when he had woken up. He had not known the king. Impa was practically a stranger to him, and given how everyone could have claimed that they did indeed know each other without Link being aware of the lie, perhaps blindly following the advice of Impa had not been a good idea.

But he had no other plan, no idea of what to do if he did not do as he had told him to, so Link continued, pushing the doubts towards the back of his mind before jumping up and shooting an arrow directly at the machine behind him.

He ended up in front of the director of the Hateno Ancient Tech Lab a little over a week later, covered from head to toe in soot. Purah, however, did not seem to mind his haggard appearance, simply taking one glance at him before demanding for him to hand her the Sheikah Slate. Deciding that her calm reaction to a stranger walking into the building, especially considering the sate he was in, was a sign that he could trust her, Link only hesitated for a moment, unwilling to let go of the cold handle of the slate and the only connection he had to his past, before he handed it over to Purah.

As she disappeared from sight, skipping across the room to place the slate on some kind of polished table, Link noticed her assistant—Symin, his name was Symin—starring at him. A single look in his direction, however, was enough to make him avert his gaze, and no matter how long Link tried to look at him, mentally willing him to tell him more about what had happened while he had been asleep, Symin did not meet his gaze again. So Link turned to staring straight ahead. The books on the bookshelf, although no doubt interesting, did not quite manage to keep his attention. Despite their colourful spines and the names of them all sounding like something he would once not have hesitated to buy, Link could not imagine actually sitting down to read them. But then why? Why did he feel like they were calling to him?

Purah's return brought an end to his ruminations about what those books might have meant to him in an earlier life, something Link was grateful for.

Placing the slate back down onto the table next to him, Purah snapped her fingers, catching his attention. "Did you know that this slate did actually not have all of the runes available for it?" she asked, once more snapping her fingers at him.

Link could barely keep himself from taking a step backwards, or at the very least asking her to stop with the loud sounds. But seeing as he was in her house and she had just helped him, he knew that it would have been impolite of him to do such a thing. So, keeping up a pleasant smile, he shook his head. "No. I had no idea."

That was the truth. How was he supposed to have known what he was still missing? Without his memories, Link could not imagine how Purah could have expected him to answer any differently.

"No, I suppose you wouldn't have," Purah agreed, tapping a finger against her cheek for a moment before once more appearing to be pure energy given mortal form, punctuating each syllable with a snap as she continued, "well, I decided to take the liberty to restore the rune in question. You don't have a problem with that do you?"

"No," Link said, though, at that point, he would have said that no matter what he had truly felt about the matter.

Purah's face lit up into a smile. "Good! Because I doubt I would have been able to remove it now. But, no matter what, you should look here," she pointed towards the slate, and as she pressed a couple of buttons on the screen, Link saw how she was able to summon an entirely new rune, "this is a camera. You do know how that works, don't you?" she barely gave him a moment to nod, confirming that, yes, the goddess had been cruel enough to remove every last one of his memories while still letting him keep his knowledge about how much a sword should weigh as he swung it above his head, how the arrow was supposed to sing while it flew through the air, and now also how a camera functioned. Perhaps that was for the better, for had it not been for that, Link was not sure he would not have sat down on the floor right then and there and wept.

Link was almost completely convinced that Purah had noticed how his thoughts were slowly but surely slipping away from the present, for she snapped once before returning to her explanation. "That is great to hear! In that case, I suppose I can just hand this back to you right now, can't I"

But despite her words, as Link reached out for the slate, letting the familiar feeling of the strange material against his hand calm his frantically beating heart, Purah did not let go of the device. If anything, she tightened her grip around it a bit more as Link attempted to pull it closer to him, and although she might physically be little more than a child, Link had to admit that she possessed a great deal of strength, more than enough to make him shoot her a questioning look.

For once, Purah did not snap her fingers at him. But although Link was able to appreciate the lack of the sound, there was something about the hesitant look in Purah's eyes and the way she bit her lip that made him feel even more anxious than before.

"There is something I should probably tell you." Purah let the end of the sentence trail off, and Link got the feeling that she was doing her best to avoid looking at him, instead keeping her gaze fixed on the slate between them as she finally began speaking again. "There were already quite a lot of pictures on the slate."

Pictures. It took a moment before Link truly realised what that entailed. Pictures meant that someone—perhaps himself—had once held the slate, seen something that they wanted to immortalise, and then pressed the button to let it be remembered forever. It meant that there had been _something_ before the moment he had awoken inside the shrine without any of his memories. Pictures meant a chance to remember.

"Do you think—" Link said, doing his best to force his voice not to tremble, although it soon became apparent that it was a losing battle. He was almost relieved when Purah cut in, saving him from having to finish the sentence.

"I am not able to promise anything. But I do think that you will find that the photographs are, at the very least, proof that you were once quite happy."

Happy. Link struggled to imagine what that had meant. Now happy was the moment he found someone who was able to tell him where to go, humming as he watched the ingredients simmer after he had thrown them into a cooking pot, feeling the wind in his hair as he pushed the horse underneath him to its limit. But had that also been what had brought him joy before? He wanted to say that it was, that he was still the same person he had always been despite the lack of memories, but the truth was that, until he sat down and looked at the pictures, Link had no way of knowing if that was the case.

Perhaps he should not look at them at all. It was the safest option. That way, he would be able to pretend that the pictures were simply photo after photo of horses, food, and the people he loved. But already the moment after he had considered the possibility of leaving the thought of what his past had been like behind him the second he left the lab, Link knew that he would never be able to forget about it. As long as he knew that the photographs existed, he would continue to think about them, wondering just what he would see if he looked at them.

So he picked up the slate and tried to ignore the way his heart was racing in his chest as he prepared to press the button to access the album.

But he did not get that far before Purah had placed a hand on his arm, keeping him from continuing.

As he lifted an eyebrow at her, she nodded towards the slate. "You might want to go outside before you look at them. I—I think that you would want to be alone when you look at them."

Even as the silence between them lasted for long enough for it to become awkward, Purah did not elaborate on her cryptic piece of advice.

The air around him was growing warmer, the walls feeling like they were moving closer towards him. It was only a question of time before there would barely be enough room for him to move around, and although the rational part of him knew that it was all due to the issue of not knowing what he would see on the slate or if he even wanted to know the answer to the question, right then, Link could not stay inside any longer. He had to get back outside.

So, sending Purah a brief nod and trying to ignore the sadness in Symin's eyes as he followed his path through the house, Link picked up the slate and left the laboratory.

The door slammed shut behind him, and before he realised what he was doing, Link had started running, sprinting along the dusty road.

It did not take long before he felt the familiar pang near his chest as he fought to breathe quickly enough to allow his body to continue to push itself to the limit, how the dust around him made his eyes water, the way his legs begged him to slow down just a little. But he ignored it all. This was something he knew how to do, Link could figure out how to hold a sword even though he did not remember his family, he could throw a spear, but not figure out what his favourite meal had been. And now he could also sprint for hours on end, but not muster the courage to do something as simple as sitting down and looking through a couple of pictures.

His wild and thoughtless flight ended as he reached a forest.

There, at the edge of the woods, he finally collapsed, letting himself lean against one of the tree trunks as he pulled the slate closer to him. It was strange to think about that something as small and fragile as the device was the closest he could come to figuring out just who he had once been. Really, all it would take for it to split in two would be one wrong move while fighting an enemy. One wrong step and the chance to learn about his past would be gone for good.

His hand paused a millimetre away from the screen, his finger hovering right above the button. Did he even want to see it?

Before he got another chance to change his mind, Link made a quick decision and pressed the button.

Instantly, the first picture filled the screen, and Link leant in over it, desperate for just a glimpse of who he had once been.

The person in the picture was not him, that much Link could see. With her long hair, shining in the sun as she looked at the camera, having seemingly only spotted it half a second before the photograph had been taken from the way she was frozen mid-twirl on the screen, she looked like she would have been able to chase away the darkness he had found himself in when he had first waken up inside the cave. But it was not only that, there was more to the picture than just the way she was smiling at him that made Link's heart skip a beat as he tried to pinpoint just who she was. For he had to remember her, Link could not imagine having taken the photograph of a stranger, and with the way she was looking at the camera, eyes twinkling, he knew that she had known the photographer as well. Of course, there was the chance that Link had not been the one behind the camera, but he did not consider the possibility of that being the case for too long. There was something about the picture, the way the camera had been angled and the slightly blurry lines around the edges, evidence that that the photographer had not held the camera still, that was exactly the kind of choice he would have made. It had to be him, it simply had to.

He could have spent hours staring at the picture, hoping that it would help him remember, but Link could still hear the way Purah's voice had echoed in his mind when she had told him about the pages upon pages of pictures that had greeted them when she had first opened the album. There were so many more, and if he wanted to maintain his hope of one of them somehow sparking something inside of him that would remind of who he was, he had to continue. So that was what he did.

The subject of the next picture was the same girl as before, only, this time, the photograph had been taken from the side, showing how she was sitting on top of a wall, her feet dangling in the air as she laughed towards the camera. A strange sense of warmth spread through his chest as Link reached up to brush a speck of dust away from the screen, his thumb resting on the spot on the screen where the girl had plated her hand against the wall. He knew her. He might not remember who she was, but Link could feel that he had known her once.

The next photo showed the girl again, this time leaning in over a flower, her hair falling in front of her face. For some reason, Link could almost hear the way she would laugh about how she wished she was able to cut it shorter as she tried to shove a few strands of hair back behind her ears only for it to immediately fall in front of her eyes again.

As he continued to make his way through the album, careful to let himself take in every picture, the beauty of it all almost overwhelming at times, Link slowly came to the realisation that almost every single one of the pictures were of the girl. Whether it was a silent moment that shoved her sitting next to a river, sticking one foot into the water, or if he had gone to stand practically right next to her before snapping a photo of her laugh, she was always there, smiling at him.

The act of placing the Sheikah Slate back down onto the ground took more strength than anything Link had ever done before. But he knew that he had to wait. If he went through all of the photographs now, Link was not sure if he would be able to continue his journey, not with the knowledge that all of the photos had been taken before the Calamity and that the girl was most likely long gone by now. So although he would much rather have continued to imagine what kind of life he had had with the girl, Link forced himself to sit still and not to fiddle with the hem of his sleeve.

_Link._

The familiar voice, the same woman—Zelda, if he remembered correctly, the king had called her Zelda—who had called out for him back on the Great Plateau, echoed through his mind, and the next instant, Link had jumped to his feet, casting a wary glance around him.

_Link,_ Zelda repeated once more, the tone of her voice a bit stronger now, _I know that you might not remember me, but I am begging you not to lose hope. All is not lost yet._

Pirouetting on the spot, Link tried his best to determine what direction the voice was coming from. It seemed that it was at once both coming from Hyrule Castle as well as the Hateno Ancient Tech Lab, but he knew that it could not be. Holding his breath, Link hoped that she would repeat herself once more, talking for just long enough to give him a chance to figure out where he had to go to find her. Of all of the people he had met, he knew that she was the one who had the best chances of being able to tell him who he was. How he could be so sure of it, Link did not know, but something inside of him was calling for her, begging her to tell him who he was and who he had been.

But no matter how much he tried not to breathe, not to move as much as a millimetre, fearing that it would be enough to make one of the twigs beneath his boots break, the voice did not continue. As his gaze swept across the ground, searching for any indication of where he should go next, the slate caught his eye. It would be so easy to sit down and let himself despair over the girl he no longer knew.

_She is not gone._

That made him pause, withdrawing his hand as if the surface of the slate had burnt him.

As he stood back up, Link made sure to show his hands, willing Zelda to see that he had listened to her, and that he would continue to do that. If only she would tell him more about him.

His prayers must have been heard, for after only a few seconds of silence, she continued. _When Hyrule fell, the girl you saw headed towards the castle, hoping that she might be able to buy the kingdom enough time for the hero to arise once more. She is still there, Link. She is waiting for you. I am waiting for you._

The world tilted around him and only his reflexes kept him from falling over as he reached out to clutch one of the low-hanging branches of the tree next to him, using every bit of strength left in him to keep himself standing up. She was still there. The girl in the pictures was Zelda, the woman whose voice he had heard when he had first woken up.

Somewhere deep down, Link knew all of that, realised that he had known from the very second he had first seen the way the girl had smiled, too afraid to let himself believe that it could be correct. But if it was… then all was not lost. His entire past was gone along with his memories, but he was not alone anymore. There was someone out there who had also been transported into the future, and as he stood there, leaning against a tree trunk and trying his best not to vomit, Link swore to himself that he would rescue her. No matter what it would take, he would find a way to free her as well as Hyrule from the spirit of the Calamity that still shrouded the castle in darkness. He had to.

His voice sounded strange, almost broken, as he looked towards the horizon, trembling with emotions. "Zelda, I am not sure if you can hear me, but if you can, know that I will be there. I will find a way to help you."

The wind around him was silent, not bringing any response, but even then, Link knew that he did not need it. Those few seconds where he had been able to hear her voice, connect it with the pictures that were still left on the slate, were enough for the resolve to strengthen. He would not give up, not before he had been able to look at her smile once more.

Picking up the Sheikah Slate and fastening it to the hook in his belt and feeling of his resolve not to rest until he had saved her grow even more determined as the weight of the device was added, Link resumed his quest into the unknown, only this time, his goal and purpose had gotten a name.

Zelda.


End file.
